Once you hit senior year of college, the quintessential question (besides the constant what are you going to do with your life?) seems to be: so are you ready for it to be over? Some seniors, including my own friends, response with an enthusiastic yes! They're ready to be done with homework and lectures and are looking forward to jobs, moves, engagements, weddings, enlistments, and more.
Most people are shocked when my response is a melancholy not really. While most college seniors are in a rush to get on with their lives, I'm content where I am. I've made better friends than I ever expected, enrolled in and loved classes that I never could have dreamed of, and had adventures more fun than I ever would have dared to believe possible. Why would I be ready to end all of that?
Sometimes I wish that I didn't have to turn in an essay or worry over attendance or read for a class, but at the end of the day, I mostly enjoy the work required for my major. That's why I'm majoring in it. And even better than the work is the people. Many of my classmates have become my friends, and class discussions can be anything from a bunny trail about trees to in-depth conspiracy theories about the hidden meaning of a poem. I love my professors, many of whom have poured into my professionally and personally and who I hope I can be friends with for a long time.
The work I enjoy and the people I love are attached to this place and this time. This college. This undergraduate degree. These four years. None of this will ever be combined in the same way ever again.
By next year, there will be new students and new professors and new classes. For graduates, there will be new jobs and new bosses and new co-workers and new cities. And although I am sure everything will be great, I am not in a hurry to rush into the new. The current, which someday will be old, has been good. I have learned and grown more than I ever thought I would with these people in this place in these circumstances.
I know that what is coming will also be good and probably better than I could imagine, just as college has been. But why do any of us need to rush into that future goodness? Let's appreciate the goodness that we have now: friends who live in the next dorm over, classmates who make you laugh until your sides hurt, professors who invite you to their office for tea, textbooks that open your mind to new concepts, essays that will throw you headfirst into interesting research, assignments that will stretch your abilities, and a school that has grown you.
So no, I'm not ready for my senior year to be over. God will prepare me for my next step (surprise: graduate school) when the time is right, but for now I will cling with both hands to the best four years of my life, and grieve that time stops for nothing, not even blessings.
